Bringing the Sun’s fire to Earth.

Inside the sun, a constant fusion fire burns. In its core, nuclei of hydrogen atoms are continually fusing to form helium. These reactions produce the immense amounts of energy that light and heat the Earth. Under terrestrial conditions, the two hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium fuse most readily; just a single gram could provide as much energy in a power plant as eleven tons of coal. To get the process started, however, the gaseous hydrogen fuel first has to be heated to an ignition temperature of a hundred million degrees.

To prevent the now hot, low-density plasma from cooling down, we use magnetic fields to form a heat insulating “cage” that confines the fuel and keeps it away from the vessel walls. With the fusion facilities and technology laboratories in Garching, Greifswald, Karlsruhe, and Jülich, we are thus creating the physical and technological basis for a climate-neutral and environmentally-friendly fusion power plant as a sustainable part of future energy supply.

(Header: IPP/Volker Rohde)